Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Farm House Tree

“Do you know the story about that house?” the woman asked.
She and her husband had been walking the path around Maple Leaf Park when they stopped
to admire my sketch. When I replied that I didn’t, she told me that it was the
original farm house back in the day when the whole area where we were standing had
been covered with pear orchards.

You can probably tell that I was more interested in the huge
leafless tree than in the house behind it, which I was tempted to skip altogether
except that, in faithful Urban Sketcher style, I wanted to include some context
to give the tree scale. But after she told me about the house’s origin, I was
happy that I had included it after all.

In the book I reviewed this morning, Felix Scheinberger says, “If you have a personal or
emotional relationship with your subject, this meaning will creep into your
picture almost magically and will also reach its viewers.” It’s very true – if I
know something about my sketch subject, no matter how little, it helps me
sketch it better. Maybe next time I’ll try a sketch with the house as the primary
subject rather than the tree, and that small factoid I learned about it will make
the house resonate with me.

But back to the tree. The woman I chatted with told me that she
and her husband have lived in the neighborhood for 48 years, and she thinks
this tree is well over a hundred years old. She also told me it’s a maple. You
can bet I’ll be back in the fall to sketch this tree again.